Sunday, March 10, 2019

So this project is partly based on a joke and on a dream, I don’t really know where I want to go with this, I only know that I love potoo birds and that I want to craft something fun and strange based on them.

So I did some researches on the potoos and I took a good quantity of notes. I want to do something with the legend about the potoo being the spirit of a woman who fell from the moon and who call her moon husband at night.

Since I have no clear directions, I will begin by generating encounters to populate the island and then I will try to make sense of what will emerge. I will try to use the monsters building blocks method I posted earlier.

My building blocks will be things related to the potoo and the island.

Building blocks (d8)

Potoo bird

Bugs (beetles, moths, grasshoppers and termites) (preys)

Small birds (preys that potoo swallow whole!)

Falcon (predators)

Monkey (predators)

Shipwrecked humans (who probably messed up the balance or ecology of the island)

I also wrote some monsters archetypes to combine with the building blocks.

Encounter types (d12)

Sentient humanoids

Mutated specialist function

Strange chimera and hybrids

Wild or primordial beasts (ancient ones may speak)

Spirits (linked to a element or concept)

Guardians (linked to a special location, gain advantage or power from it)

Corrupted, cursed or undead

Monstrous hoarder (accumulate stuff)

Mimics, shapeshifters

Deforestation, destruction of the environment

Influenced or affected by a other building block (like falcons trained by humans or a ancient potoo spirit who hate humans) (Roll a d10 on this table to determine archetype and d8 on the building blocs table to determine relation)

Roll two d10 on this table and mix the results, double result give a unique champion encounter with +1HD)

I also crafted a random table that spotlight traits or aspects of the potoos. I will roll on this table when I need inspiration.

Potoo's aspects (d10)

Big eyes

Big mouth, eat things whole

Eerie call, induce fear or sadness

Camouflage

Stillness (or the need to avoid movements)

Nocturnal, sleepy or lazy during day

Eat insects and small birds

Don’t hunt on the ground, mob defense

Mate for life and lay a single egg, camouflaged hidden egg.

Can be cartoony or spooky

I will probably start by generating creatures for each Hit Die I want to feature on the island. Then I will assign HD to areas of the island and craft random tables around these.

Evey is one of the voices that I hope people will nurture in this new hopeful cycle of old school gaming. She is a bit gross at time (her alignment being cute-gross) but she is also very sensitive and

her raw and vibrant art is constantly mutating and evolving.

Remember my old campaign concept about playing a coven of witches using only a specific set of spells? You could totally play that with a coven of witches who secretly studies the books of scarabs. Or if you prefer something more fantasy, the scarabs magic coud be a good fit to use with the Spinetooth Oasis.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

This
is a contribution for a city generator project that Anxy is working
on.Anxy generated this map using his system with my city set:

Slumber
City

A
long time ago, to repel a large invading force, the mages of the city
casted a powerful mass sleep spell, they lost control of the spell
and now it essence is bound into the city itself. The city now stand
at the edge of the waking and slumber worlds.

Truths

Slumbering:
because of the sleep essence infused in the city, people are often
dozy and regularly fall asleep, sleeping is greatly respected,
waking up someone is badly view.

Slumberland:
the city coexist in the Slumberland, people who fall asleep in the
city continue their daily routine in the Slumberland. Work in the
Slumberland is considered on the same level as working in the waking
world. The farther you venture beyond the city walls the more
strange and alien the Slumberland become.

Sleepwalkers
are people who are stuck between both world, they exist in both and
do everything in a sleepwalking mode, it is hard to communicate with
them in either worlds.

Architecture:
baroque and highly influenced by the strange architecture of the
Slumberland. There is a lot of import and export between the two
worlds. Sandmen do most of the import and export as they can
physically travel between both worlds. Dreams gates can also be
summoned but are unstable.

Landmarks
d10

Gigantic
rock carved in the shape of a sleepy moon.

City
hall build with meteorites stones imported from the slumber world

Clockwork
dome containing mechanical spheres following the movement of the
planets and the stars.

Large
sentient nocturnal bird, talkative during the night and dreaming
during the day.

Moon
masked people doing business in sign language. (1 chance on a d6 of
this being about something occult, criminal or romantic).

Sélénites,
tall alien inhabitants of the moon, speak only in sign and phases
language. Probably tourists or scholars but there is a chance on a
d6 that they have some occult, criminal or romantic goals.

Garden
of candles full of oddly shaped candles and moon cakes offerings,
dream sprites like to hang out here but there is a chance on d6 that
the garden hide a wax homunculi or a corrupted dream being (that
devoured the sprites).

Sleepwalker
brightly costumed as the bogeyman monster.

Slumberland
bogeyman in search of a lone prey, the bogeyman is sacred and no one
want to hurt it.

Spontaneous
monster festival because someone spotted the bogeyman, people wear
grotesques masks and paint grotesques effigies on their doors.

People
having a open door pyjama party, everyone are welcomed if they wear
a pyjama.

Someone
wearing a impressive tailored pyjama or a custom self made one.

Old
person transporting a large collection of colorful cloth ballots on
their back.

Silkworm
people delivering their goods, may be targeted by silk thieves, silk
eaters or worms hunters.

Strange
sculpture, oddly disturbing or calming.

Sculptor,
feared and respected for their strange powers stolen from the
Slumberland.

Sunday, February 24, 2019

I am playing on my computer Heroes of a Broken Land, a procedural grid based dungeon crawler and I noted that the monsters were all variations of basic boring creatures like bats, snakes, rats, slimes, zombies, etc… I wondered if it could be interesting to create a monster manual using a limited palettes of creatures as building blocks.

Why? I like low-fi basic stuff and I am intrigued by the thematic settings that may emerge out of these limited palettes. This is just a “lonely fun” experiment but it could be useful to generate local biomes. Well, I guess this link to my love of biomes too.

So for our basic palette I thought of six basic boring monsters types:

Friday, February 22, 2019

I tried to write a more personal post to present my point of view on the cycle of abuses that the author of Vornheim inflicted on a significant part of the OSR, DIY and RPG communities. But I still have a hard time processing everything and the words are difficult to come by.

What I can say is that when I discovered the old school gaming community, it felt like a vast and wonderful land full of friendly and creative people. When I discovered this land I was wounded from a failed attempt at transitioning, interacting with these people helped me to heal and to start drawing again.

But then Z.Sabbath conflictual and controlling attitude started to impact more and more the community, he started putting my friends on trial, labeling them and asking other people to block them and to stop interacting with them. This opened my eyes and I started to notice his gaslighting, controlling and grooming tactics. As the toxic behaviors repeated themselves (including those of others), the land grew poorer, creative people that inspired me a lot left and I had to avoid many community spaces and projects. Z Sabbath befriended many of my friends, including all of my trans women friends and the places where I felt safe were fewer and fewer, the land shrunk under my feet.

Eventually it became too difficult for me to manage my relations with other creators as many of them tolerated or supported him, when I saw that he was playing a leadership role in the G+ diaspora I understood that I could not follow them. And then there was the LotFP photo incident that spotlighted a very transphobic author and the transphobic reactions that followed, including the “I identify as a alien helicopter” post by Venger S that many humored. These things made me feel in a inhospitable place and I could not get closer to my allies as many of them supported the author of Vornheim. So I decided to leave the RPG community… I closed everything and I took refuge on my Patreon and eventually in Shel Khan’s tiny community of artists on Discord.

But the thing is that I really enjoy crafting and publishing roleplaying games material. In January I slowly started working back on some of my unfinished projects but working in exile was not the same, I felt cut away, things felt less meaningful and I had a hard time motivating myself. Now that things seem to change because of some courageous testimonies, I feel like that I can slowly reconnect with the RPG community and feel safe again interacting with other gamers and creators.

This was the story part, I could also discuss how Z.Sabbath toxic and controlling behavior made the old school community a creatively poorer space, especially for people who had different sensibilities. But right now I just want to have fun creating again and to move forward.

I want to move forward slowly and carefully. I am reopening this blog to use it as a archive and I will maybe open a new one to post gaming stuff, but I don’t know yet. I will put back my roleplaying zines on LuLu when I will find some time. I am also accepting some commissions for games related illustrations. Naturally, I still want to work on non gaming related projects, like coloring books, children books, comics and other artsy zines. (Right now I simply work on what seem fun and doable).

Friday, November 9, 2018

Oh Piercer King! Cold and dark. Always patient, all seeing. 300 years waiting in the underdark‘s highest dreams. 300 years amassing your mass, one long fall to dethrone the dark lich and feed on her black heart. Bestower of the divine trépanation, infuser of gravity, may your grace fall on me and make me your knight. Fasting under you, my stone blade on my tights, I wait. A sharp stone needle fall from his crown, embedding itself into the skull of of the supplicant knight.